Commentary
Find our newspaper columns, blogs, and other commentary pieces in this section. Our research focuses on Advanced Biology, High-Tech Geopolitics, Strategic Studies, Indo-Pacific Studies & Economic Policy
India Needs a More Transparent Approach To Space Situational Awareness
The recent, barely avoided collision between India’s Cartosat 2F and Russia’s Kanopus V satellites highlights the need for transparent space situational awareness (SSA) in India.Information about the close call only became public after a tweet by Roscosmos – the Russian state space corporation – that went into specifics about the incident. The response of the Indian Space Research Organisation’s chairman K. Sivan makes it clear that India does not publicly discuss such events, and resolves them by coordinating with other space agencies.Read the full article in The Wire
Intelligence agencies must track ecological threats and epidemics
After news of an unusual ‘pneumonia’ outbreak was confirmed on 31 December 2019, the Taiwanese government immediately initiated control measures that ensured that the island nation remained relatively unscathed by the covid-19 pandemic. The country of 24 million has suffered a mere 686 cases to date. Public accounts describe Taiwanese authorities as having found out about the Wuhan outbreak on New Year’s Eve from social media platforms that amplified a whistle blown by a mainland Chinese health worker. We should not be surprised, though, if we were to learn that Taiwan’s spooks had already figured out by then that something was afoot in Wuhan, a city that Taipei has intense traffic with. Thanks to the early warning, Taiwan started quarantining passengers starting 1 January 2020 and began investigations that a couple of weeks later uncovered that there was indeed human-to-human transmission of the virus, countering the Chinese government’s claims to the contrary.Read the full article on Live Mint
Guiding the Strategic Rudder
Political guidance for India’s strategic rudder is being tested by China’s Great Power ambitions. In Ladakh, disengagement and de-escalation remain on ice. An eyeball to eyeball confrontation continues, one that is pregnant with possibilities of sudden eruptions that could dwarf the Galwan incident in terms of force exchange and casualties.The deployment of military forces at the highest state of alert over such extended periods is a recipe for the elements of the accidental, and the inadvertent coalescing in unimaginable ways due to miscommunication, misperception and misjudgement. The deep uncertainty, danger and stress experienced as situational awareness at the individual and collective levels could explode and cause catastrophe in the mountainous terrains of Ladakh. Political rationality on either side may not be able to control escalation that can easily spiral from a minor incident to a major exchange of fire power.Read the full article on the Deccan Herald
China wants a reset with Biden, but won’t change its approach
There has been much debate about why China was slow to acknowledge Joe Biden’s election victory. It took nearly a week after Biden’s victory speech for China’s foreign ministry to issue formal congratulations. Xi Jinping is among the few world leaders who still hasn’t spoken to Biden. Despite that, Beijing has been watching the unfolding political drama in the United States (US) with a sense of cautious optimism.Read the full article in the Hindustan Times.
Managing India’s Defence Expenditure Requires a Whole-of-Government Approach
"We must do something.This is something.Therefore, we must do this."This logical fallacy, derisively labelled as the politician's syllogism, accurately explains recent developments to contain defence expenditure in the wake of COVID-19. Balancing between development and defence priorities is a tough act even in the best of times. But the unprecedented economic aftermath of COVID-19 has meant that a range of solutions — symbolic, radical, and ill-advised — are all now on the table.Read the full article in ThePrint.
India should create bubbles of trust with its geopolitical allies
A few months ago, this column had argued that the tech war between the United States and China is being fought across a flexible, porous bamboo curtain, and India’s interests lie in staying out of the Sinosphere while creating circles or bubbles of trust “with the US, Japan, Taiwan, Australia, Singapore and South Korea that will help Indian companies, professionals and consumers find themselves in circles of opportunity." Even if political changes around the world rekindle interest in multilateral approaches to world trade, technology and climate change, New Delhi must prioritise deepening relationships with its geopolitical allies (there, I said the word). Like air bubbles for international travel during the pandemic, first create bubbles of trust bilaterally with strategic partners and then explore whether these can coalesce into larger bubbles that include more countries.Read More
A coalition to counter China will take some time to operationalise
This story was first published in The Mint. Views are personal.This week, another important cog in the machinery of strategic cooperation between India and the United States fell into place when the two countries signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (Beca) for Geospatial Intelligence. The agreement opens the doors for India to get access to military-grade global positioning system signals, digital imagery and mapping that can upgrade the capabilities of our defence forces and intelligence agencies. For the United States, the agreement not only helps lock India in as a defence equipment buyer, but more importantly, is one more step towards drawing New Delhi onto its side, geopolitically.Read More
India’s Australia Signal| Delhi’s horizontal escalation
For India, the announcement of Australia’s participation in the annual Malabar naval exercises of 2020 is a deliberate horizontal escalation of the continental border crisis whose present centre of gravity is Ladakh. The Malabar exercises began as an Indo-US bilateral exercise in 1992. In 2015, Japan joined in and India has now overcome its reticence about annoying China and opened the door for Australia. The connection with China’s rise and its strategic misbehaviour is obvious and is part of a larger global countervailing move for stability and balance. For India, the burning question is, what difference can this make to China’s threats on its continental borders.Read more
It is time India gave its policy on Tibet some strategic coherence
Understanding China’s LAC deployment capabilities
Broadening of the India-China standoff into multiple theatres will present formidable challenges for Chinese forcesAll eyes are on the meeting between Indian external affairs minister S Jaishankar and his Chinese counterpart on September 10 in Moscow, nevertheless, it has increasingly become clear over the past few weeks that the two countries are preparing for a...The article was originally published in Deccan Herald.
Xi’s new approach to Tibet will affect India
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent remarks at the seventh Central Symposium on Tibet Work indicate that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is doubling down on its hardline approach in the region, which evolved gradually after the 2008 protests.The strategy for the next few years that Xi outlined entails a mix of persuasion, development, connectivity, indoctrination and coercion. This will not only have serious implications for ordinary Tibetans but will also impinge on the Sino-Indian boundary question, particularly in the context of China’s claims on Arunachal Pradesh.Read the full article in Hindustan Times.
Evolving India's Military Strategy
The ongoing situation on the Sino-Indian border offers a unique opportunity for the military leadership. They could impel the political leadership to facilitate the formulation of a military strategy despite the lack of an overarching National Security Strategy. Militarily, let there now be no doubt that countering China should be the primary focus of our military power. Pakistan is the lesser threat. Rebalancing military power towards China from its greater inclination towards Pakistan in the continental and maritime domain will undoubtedly be the prime challenge.The full article can be read here.
The US-China tech war is being fought across a bamboo curtain
India must treat the oil spill near Mauritius as SoS. Lockdown has left seafarers exhausted
he Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius is facing one of its most serious crises in its modern history. On 21 July, around a week into its voyage from Singapore to the Brazilian port of Tubarao, the MV Wakashio, a 300-metre long bulk carrier, owned and operated by Japanese companies, deviated from its course and headed towards Mauritius instead of the regular shipping lanes several nautical miles south of it. A few days later, it struck a reef just over a kilometre from the shore, ran aground, spilled around a 1,000 tons of oil into the sea, before splitting into two. A major portion of the front part of the massive ship (or the “bow”) has been towed some distance to the south where it has been allowed to sink. The remaining parts lie on the reef, as weather and sea conditions do not permit its disposal. The ship’s 20-member crew has been arrested by the Mauritius authorities, and its captain, Sunil Kumar Nandeshwar, an Indian national, has been charged with endangering safe navigation.
Even without accounting for the Covid-19 pandemic, Mauritius is under-equipped to deal with environmental and economic disasters the marine accident has brought upon the nation. Over the past month, French and Indian marine disaster management personnel have joined their local counterparts in containing the damage, and Japanese and other international experts are to follow in the coming days.
India is good in the Arab world now. But Delhi must quickly move to contain Turkey’s Erdogan
It came as a surprise but it is not surprising. When the United Arab Emirates and Israel announced that they would establish normal relations with each other, in a US-brokered agreement last week, they publicly accepted what has been obvious for several years now — that the national interests of the Emirates along with those of Saudi Arabia and many other Arab states were converging with those of Israel.
The triangular contest in the Middle East — with Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia vying for regional dominance — is a modern replay of older rivalries between the Persians, Ottomans and Arabs. With Israel perceiving an existential threat from Iran and being wary of once-friendly but increasingly threatening Turkey, realist logic would expect Tel Aviv to gravitate towards the Arab nations. The thorny Palestinian question long prevented an alliance between Israel and the Arab powers. Set that aside and Israel and the Arab nations become co-travellers on the road to prevent Iranian and Turkish hegemony over the Middle East.Read More.
A retreat from global trade will hurt India’s geopolitical stature
The People’s Liberation Army is strong. But it has four weaknesses
It hasn’t fought since 1979; it has been corrupt; it lacks skilled personnel; and it has financial issuesThe People’s Republic of China (PRC) will be celebrating the 93rd founding anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) on August 1. Consolidated in 1927 during the Nanchang uprising by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), PLA was formed as an armed wing to counter the Kuomintang’s anti-communist purges during the Chinese civil wars. Since then, PLA has become the world’s largest armed force with around 2.03 million active and 510,000 reserve personnel.In its recent history, it had two important turning points. First, the United States (US)’ use of advanced and sophisticated weaponry in the first Gulf War of the 1990s compelled PLA to pursue technological advancement. Two, the Central Military Commission (CMC) chairman, Xi Jinping’s championing of the Chinese dream to make PLA a world-class force by 2049 led to its restructuring and rapid modernisation. However, despite the technological advances and growing military might, PLA has key weaknesses. Here are the four most important challenges for PLA at 93.The article was originally published in the Hindustan Times.
What is driving China’s aggression?
There has been growing debate in recent times in India and other countries about China’s aggression. What’s driving Beijing to engage in contests on multiple fronts, be it Hong Kong, the near seas, or India, particularly amid a pandemic and economic weakness? Is it opportunism? Is it hubris? Is internal turmoil and insecurity leading to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) lashing out? Or are there structural factors that one must consider?Read the full article in The Hindustan Times.